Benedict Cumberbatch, a natural choice for the role with his history of semi-autistic geniuses, portrays the organisation's controversial founder Julian Assange with unerring verisimilitude, with his tics, impatience, arrogance and zeal as he descends into near-megalomania on his messianic crusade to expose everything without any editing or regard for consequences, trampling over those closest to him (namely, a long-suffering Daniel Brühl playing his confidante and conscience).
The film seems to conclude that Assange is essentially a force for good, but one that has gone out of control. The fact that the players are all still around lends it immediacy, but at the same time this means that it is left frustratingly unfulfilling as a dramatic work.
To seek to increase viewer engagement with a vast subject which the medium cannot possibly show the full import of, the stock devices of spy films and techno-thrillers are used, namely constantly jumping around global locations and digital visualisations of cyberspace. They do help in taking us through the story, but ultimately there is a prevailing lack of focus when it comes to deciding what it really wants to say: is it about the personality of Assange, the significance of the facts exposed, or the bullying tactics employed against him by Western governments? It wants to cover all of these, and rather falls between several stools in the attempt.
5/10
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